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Christmas Cards Made 2016

Thursday, 28 November 2013

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American blogging friends. Hope this day finds you eating lots of yummy turkey, surrounded by family and celebrating the occasion!

Seemed only fitting to make a Thanksgiving card to join in on the festivities. We had Canadian Thanksgiving in October so I already had a lovely assortment of fall and Tday papers and embellies out on my desk. Since I still had snippets of Forever In Time, Autumn Art on my worktop, I decided to use up some more of that line. I have three different papers from this collection and managed to use pieces from all of them. I did not have to cut into any new papers at all, as I even used snippets of leftover 12x12 scrapbooking card stock.

I used a kraft corrugated card base and boy oh boy, do I love those corrugated bases. The enture outside of the kraft card is corrugated, so even though the DP covers most of the front, there is still the lovely side edge and back exposed. These are the cards that are quite thick. They have a double fold so you can comfortably fit a chocolate bar or small gift inside. It goes without saying that they are best suited to hand delivery!!!

The sentiment sticker is by Bo Bunny and I was worried that it was a bit small for this card. I stuck it to another snippet of card stock and fussy cut that into a mat. I wanted the scarecrows to show up so didn't want to use a Spellbinder die as it would obscure too much of the background.

Once I got the snippet of jute tied round the top layer, I felt like it needed something more. I cut a couple of Memory Box Woodland and Grove branches from a bit darker card stock, and tucked them under the jute. Then I thought they looked a little too bare, so I fussy cut some leaves out of one of the Autumn Art papers and glued them down at random, around the bottom of the branches. Not too fond of the dark one that sort of slid to the bottom of the card...but I am stuck with it there as the glossy accents had dried by the time I noticed it!!!

Tuesday, 26 November 2013

I had a bit of a fall today...the leg of my daughters dining room chair buckled...the screws were stripped:( SIL had glued that leg but the glue was not set . They forgot to tell me not to sit there yet. ...eight chairs and I picked the wrong one!
I am stiff and sore...I hit the island on my way down, so have a sore neck and back as well as shoulders...ugggh...
My first thoughts...This better not affect my Black Friday shopping!!! lol

Second thoughts? Oh no...It is Di's 100 week celebration over at Pixies Crafty Workshop...lol
Had to get cracking on with my cards as there are some wonderful prizes this week and Di is hoping to get over 60 entries.

So with my Mojo clouded a bit by painkillers and anti inflammatories, I decided to use a sketch to simplify my crafting. I recently made a Thanksgiving card, so I still had my Fall themes drawer out on my desk. Beside it was my snippets of autumn papers...

I remembered seeing the great sketch this week on Simon Says Stamp, so decided to only use whatever was on my desk to create some fall themed thank you cards. This was partly to save time as I already had autumn papers, ribbon, twine, embellies hauled out and partly because it saved me all the bending and lifting I would have to do to put all that away and pull out new products!!! See, there was a method to my madness...and my back thanked me:)

Not only did I vow to only use what was out...I also vowed to make a few cards all at once. Not mass produced mind...just make a few with the same products. This is a goal I have wanted to try for quite some time. It can get tedious to pull everything out for one card and then spend as much time filing it all away. This way, I get to enjoy the products a little longer. The owl cards were the first "series" that I tried this idea on and these fall cards will be the next!

I decided to use prefolded cards for these thank you notes. I have 10 boxes of these babies. They are the size that Canadian card makers often use, but are a bit too thin for regular cards. They are perfect for notecards! Luckily, some were fall colours.

Sunday, 24 November 2013

Another Owl Christmas Card, that is! Hope you are not too tired of them this month!

This is another fairly flat card...hopefully it will meet the criteria for standard postage. To this light, I have not used any pop dots at all...even the red diamonds are the smallest size I own. Usually this size bling makes it through the mail test slot.

Remember my Michael's 90% off bargains? One of the things I bought that day was a box of black glittered belly bands. I found them in the wedding department. They are beautifully glittered...that kind of fine glitter that does not fall off...thank goodness! The belly band has a beautiful scalloped part in the center that will work out great for certain cards...but my red mat has hidden that aspect of it. What does show is the lovely glittered black band...not sure if you can see it on my card but it is very sparkly IRL.

I also used some more of my VOS (very old stash) red suede card stock. I so love this paper. It is so old, from many, many years ago, when I first started scrapbooking. It has a gorgeous sheen like velveteen. Sadly, I just have a couple of teensy pieces left now.

I kept the design fairly simple as the red, green and white striped design paper is heavily glittered as well. Two layered Impression Obsession snowflakes, the Spellbinders mat and some Quickuts corner pieces and that was that!

I am taking this card over to Sarn at Stamping for Pleasure. On the 25th of each month she runs her Rudolph Day Challenge. This is a great challenge to help get your Christmas cards done for the year.
Sarn is lovely, pop on over for a peek and leave her some bloggy praise! I have met some wonderful bloggy friends through her challenge...it is a lot of fun and something I look forward to joining in with each month!

Since I used snippets for the snowflakes and precious snippets of the red suede, I am also taking this card over to Di at Pixies Crafty Workshop. Di has a wonderful challenge for cards or projects made with snippets! Di is so much fun and I guarantee you will enjoy this challenge.

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

I know it is a bit early to start my Christmas baking, but thought I would share photos of the decorated tins I will packing full of shortbread cookies for my Mum. The tins are from Dollarama...my fave Dollar Store! They bring them out in different colours at various times during the year.
You can also use one quart pain tins (purchased empty and new from your local paint store)...but they are about twice the price and then still need spray painted outside!!! For very hungry friends and families you could use the brand new, one gallon tins from your local paint store.

The first tin is very easy. It is just a red paint can with white foam snowflakes from the same Dollar Store stuck randomly all over it. There are various sizes of snowflakes, so it does not end up looking too even. I saved one large snowflake for the lid, and then tied a variety of Christmas coloured ribbon to the wire handle.

The second is a little fancier looking but I can assure you it is nearly as easy! The script "Merry Christmas" is a scrapbook page topper from the Dollar Store. It has been mounted on a strip of green cardstock and then matted with a strip of striped paper. I then glued it to the tin with red glue lines and then stuck a chipboard Santa to the lid. The wire handle has once again been tied with some snippets of ribbon.

Here is a view of the word Merry...you will have to take my word that the whole thing spells Merry Christmas as it is impossible to get the whole word in the photos. lol

This project is proof of the power of saving snippets of all sorts. I make tins like this at Halloween, Easter, etc. My appropriate ribbon snippets collected during the year, are saved in tins like this. Easter colours into a pastel tin along with any "orphaned" embellies or stickers , Christmas colours into a green, red or blue one! Leftover snowflakes, etc are thrown in them too...When I have a need to make up a new tin, I have the "ingredients" ready. Luckily, this size of tin fits on top of the tall cupboards in my scrapbook room.

I will try to remember to post a picture just before I mail it...when they are both full of yummy shortbread cookies. I make whipped shortbread and also a sliced version. The sliced are rolled like a refrigerator cookie, set in the fridge to firm for an hour or so and then sliced and pricked with a fork. They were a recipe from my English Grandma and it would not be Christmas without them! They are the same ingredients as a traditional shortbread and have the same texture.

Did you notice my photos are crisper again? I finally got out to a camera shop and had it corrected and cleaned. There was a smear of something dirtying my lens in the center. They would not take any payment and so I wondered about afterwards, checking out their camera and printers. The newer version of my camera now has a wifi version. I think I know what I will want when this one finally packs it in! They also had the Selphy photo printer...they are very popular with crafters who do December Daily or Project Life as you can print direct from your phone or your camera...I will have to check and see if they work with Windows 8 as well.

Off to go retake some of the really out of focus photos on my posts in the past couple of weeks, and then reload them to my blog!!! It is such a good feeling to have the camera problem resolved. Now if I could just learn to take good photos...lol

Saturday, 16 November 2013

In keeping with the spirit of horses established on my last post, I decided to make a Christmas card with a horse theme! You all know that I come from a very horsey family, so there will be no lack of takers for this type of card. lol I often wonder how I escaped the horsey gene...

You will have to forgive the fuzziness of my photo...I have somehow managed to get my camera settings out of order and I can not seem to get them back to snuff...I need to take my camera in to have it checked and restored to what I am used to! In the past couple of weeks all the photos on my blog are not "crisp" for want of a better word.

Here is a bit of a closeup...not sure if you can see the Spica pen sparkling on the black fur trim of the sleigh, and the Stardust Stickles on the ladies hand muff. The snowflakes are a silver glitter Martha Stewart snowflake layered on top of an Impression Obsession Pink glitter one. This photo is a little "crisper' but the camera was only a couple of inches away from the card.

The fabulous horse drawn sleigh caught my eye on this Stampendous stamp. My Dad and sister always did up a vintage Santa sitting in an antique horse drawn sleigh at Christmastime. It sat in the front garden of the farm, welcoming the visitors. When my sister got married, Dad took her to the church in a horse drawn carriage. You can see why I was instantly draw to this image.

I knew I had to have this stamp as soon as I laid eyes on it. Lucky for me, that LSS has a 40% off coupon almost every week. It is one of the places on my errands lists on my walking days! lol

This fortnight, the lovely Carol from CM Design chose the Christmas card theme of Pretty in Pink. As this stamp so easily suits pretty colours and dies, I knew right away what card I would make. I coloured the image with copics and then die cut and matted it using Spellbinders

Thursday, 14 November 2013

The Pony Girl aka Little Miss C turned 7 in October. My how those 7 years have flown by! It does not seem like 7 years since we saw the pumpkin on their porch carved into "It's a girl".

She had a science themed party for all the girls in her class and some of her close friends from outside of school. This Grandma was kept busy making a rainbow Happy Birthday banner and was so happy to be doing it!

Once again, she chose to accept no presents from her friends and instead raised funds for the Bird Sanctuary. She raised $215.00 and was really happy with that. Instead of the birds that came to the party last year, there was a fellow who brought rescued hampsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, hedgies etc. He does not raise funds, just brings the animals and teaches the children and adults about how to care for them properly. His is just an educational display.

Friday night was the family party. Their family tradition is to have the birthday child chose their favourite restaurant and we all meet there for supper. She did receive presents from her Mum and Dad (a guitar) and also presents from both sets of Grandparents, so she was not totally without any gifts.

Here is the card I made her. I searched high and low for an image of three horses. While I have plenty of horse stamps, I could not find any with an image of 3 horses. Finally, I looked through my 12 x 12 paper that I used to scrapbook my daughters Pony Club days. Luckily, I found a paper that would work. It had several horses and I carefully cut out the three I needed.

Why three horses? Well, my present to her was a riding lesson for three people. She has a secret horse club with two of her childhood friends. I do not know the name as it is a secret! lol She has been wanting to have a riding lesson for just the 3 of them and now she can! It seemed to be a hit so that made us happy.

The background DP is a pattern of horseshoes. I roughed up the edges of the papers I used to compliment the tattered look of the horseshoe paper. I just dragged the edges of all the papers with the back of my scissors.

I had a few sticker embellishments in my horse themed scrapbook files. I cut down a girth strap sticker for the bottom left of the card, and placed the boots and hat on it. Just managed to fit the Stampin' Up word window punched sentiment on it!

I used the same sticker set for the horse and rider on the inside of this card. Punched it out with Spellbinders Petite Circles and matted that with a snippet of brown card that was cut with a S/B Petite scalloped circle.

Are you wondering just what my card is leaning on? It is a cornucopia of autumn silk flowers that my eldest daughter picked up at Michaels last year for 90% off. She picked up two of them, rather beat up and skimpy with flowers...a few flowers missing or 3/4 falling out. Recently, the autumn flowers and sprays were 80% off and I picked up a few and reworked the cornucopia. It looks so much better now...here is full on picture...

Sunday, 10 November 2013

I was not looking forward to this one...I did not have extra red rubber trimmings (that were used in the tutorial) to make the block with which to stamp the versamark ink. I used makeup sponges...those sort of triangular ones that you buy in a big bag at the dollar store.

Since I had to improvise on the tutorial directions, and was not sure if my idea would even work, I decided to keep the faux finish treatment to the DP only. I cut a piece of VOS (very old supplies) Basic Grey DP. I chose it as thought it had the boldness of pattern that would perhaps suit the stained glass look.

I pushed the long triangle end into the ink and stamped it onto my paper. over and over. It was hard to see where I had stamped and where not! I heat embossed with clear embossing powder and could see I had huge unstamped areas that were going to look like big black blobs once I inked it up...so I repeated the process...restamped it wwith the versamark ink and re-embossed it.

Once cool, I rubbed black memento ink all over it and then wiped off the excess. The ink stayed in the areas that were not covered by the versamark and embossing treatment. Just as I had worried, the ink filled into large "patches", rather than the sort of fine lines you would see on a stained glass window.
Looking through the other entries, I can see that others had this same problem. Even on the designers samples, some have very thick lines of dark ink so perhaps this technique is supposed to have wide inked lines...

All in all, I was a bit disappointed in my glass making skills and just wanted to let you know that you can breathe a sigh of relief that I will not be persuing any new career as a stained glass artist! lol

I had a stamped Joy sentiment and image that I had inked up, coloured, stickled and already die cut and filed away. I decided I would like the crisp look of the white against the dark look of the inked up DP. I

matted it with a snippet of red card and placed a K&Co poinsettia in the left corner. I did have to ink the edges with some red ink, as I managed to get a bit of the black ink smeared on the mat! With the red ink added, you can barely see it...at least that is what I am telling myself.

Here is a closeup showing the embossed and inked DP and the shimmer on the stamped holly leaves.

I decided not to add any other embellishments as I do not want to cover up the stained glass requiement of the challenge.

Not sure how I feel about this project. I certainly meets the brief of Day 7 but.....
A shudder ran through me when I read the project!
Off to the dollar store I ran to pickup a mouse trap and I must say it was an easy challenge to make.

A few snippets of the leftover Best Creations green and fed glitter card, a K&Co Dec 25 die cut, a Martha Stewart punched snowflake, a diamond bling and a snippet of swiss dotted ribbon...that was it...my project was done.

We usually go for a drive out to see the Christmas displays. There are whole streets in our area who decorated with lights all over their front gardens. They sync the lights flashing to music and have areas that kiddies (or grownups) can walk through. Generally, there is a collection box for their favourite charity.

I look forward to those drives as there are some spectacular homes and sometimes even whole streets! I will use my fridge magnet to hold the newspaper clipping that lists all the best addresses for the current year.

Phew! I'm on the home stretch now. Still working on the MFP Twelve Days Of Christmas. Day 11 is to make a Christmas banner. Soon as I read the brief, I knew what I would create.

I had a few Stampendous Owls coloured up, so I took a blue one and mounted it on the off cut of Spellbinders Sprockets. It is cut from snippets of navy velvet/suede card. This is the last of this paper. It is VOS and I have always loved it...hence hoarding it all these years!

I covered the card base a grey tone on tone stripe. I had two banners cut already from a scrapbooking page, so placed them on the far left side and mounted the framed owl just off the banners edge. Three little rhinestones and a K & Co greenery sprig and that side was finished.

I wanted to keep the card fairly simple as the brief is the banner, and I wanted it to show up. My banner was punched from the last snippets of the navy suede card using the modern labels punch from Stampin up. I didn't have enough card left to punch the whole thing so I just punched the end pieces and then trimmed them square across the top. I had some teensy letter stickers in my alpha drawer and they seemed to fit perfectly!
I ran a hand sewn length of the fine silver cord through the banners with a darning type needle, and then knotted the ends. A very slim pop dot and some glossy accents hold it down.

I did think it looked a wee bit bare and unbalanced on the bottom right, so I added the Quickcuts corner die on a scrap of the banner paper.

Saturday, 9 November 2013

I really enjoyed making this tag for Day 5 of the Marks Finest Papers Twelve Days of Christmas Challenge.

I had not made a 3D tag before, so this was another fun challenge! I am going up to my Mum's on Monday ( fairly unexpectedly) will be bringing the Christmas gifts that I have already purchased, as it saves on posting them. I needed to make two tags for those gifts, so this challenge came at the right time.

Now, some of you may remember that my little sister is a Three Day Event rider. She has her whole house decorated in an Equestrian theme. I have even blogged her Equestrian Christmas decorations here. I thought it was quite appropriate to have the tag on her gift reflect her life's passion!

Each year I get her a couple of horse and rider tree ornaments. Sometimes dressage riders, sometimes cross country riders, sometimes stadium jumpers. They always come in these pretty black boxes with the silver script and the silver bows. It is just up to me to plan a fancy tag each year and then do them up all the same for my Mum and my sister's gifts. It is always fun to plan the theme and run with it.

I stamped a Marks Finest Papers Wild Horses stamp across the bottom of the tag. I then stamped a Penny Black Christmas Sentiment above that. Since I was now out of room on my tag, I angled another tag of sheet music across the first one and glued it down.

I punched a Martha Stewart Snowflake out of some of the snippets of Best Creations Rd Glitter card and placed that on the sheet music. I then punch 6 teensy circles fom some VOS vellum. I have had this vellum for 10 or maybe even 15 years! Yep, definitely using up some VOS here!

Basically, I just folded each circle in half and then put a teensy micro glue dot on each side and glued them to the next folded circle..over and over till I had enough "fullness" to make a honeycomb type, dome shaped ball. I glued the 2 outside halves down to the snowflake and it was done! It does look like a honeycomb expanding embellishment, IRL. I then tucked an extra red glitter snowflake under the sheet music and added a few rhinestones here and there on the green card..

I used a few pieces of the fine silver cord to thread through the tag and then took a second piece and slid it under the threaded cord and tied a loopy bow. I stamped the back of the tag with a "To and From" stamp set and it was good to go!

Friday, 8 November 2013

Today I made the Candy Tubes for Marks Finest Papers, Twelve Days Of Christmas, Day 8 challenge.
This one was super easy, and fun.

The tutorial shows a variety of different candy stick ideas. I chose Lindt for Little Mr P and will tuck it away for one of his stocking gifts. I may even make one each for everyone in my family as I think these are a great idea.

I picked up pretzel bags at the dollar store. Before this challenge, I never even knew they existed! lol I placed 5 small Lindt balls in the bottom section of my tube as I was trying to get the balance I needed to create a diamond pattern for the next couple of sections. Low and behold it worked! That usually never happens for me.

Here is a picture of the back with the stamped image.

You will notice a repeat performance of some of the supplies from the past days challenges. I have to confess that is partly because I am already into the sparkle of Christmas, but mainly because I have not cleaned off my desk yet. Out of sight, out of mind...and these sparkly bits and bobs are lying there, just begging to be used!

I punched a Stampin' Up scalloped circle from Best Creations Olive Green glitter card and fully anchored it onto the candy tube with a staple. I put the staple right through the layers of folded green as I knew I could hide it with the next topper layers. Sure enough the red glitter card circle hid it well. I punched a Martha Stewart snowflake from some scraps of the White glitter card, added a red rhinestone and the front was finished. Another snowflake was placed on the back of the topper and this time I used another fussy cut image of the teensy holly leaves from MFP Holly Jolly Christmas stamp set.

Thursday, 7 November 2013

I made my first ever TP mini album for Marks Finest Papers Day 12 challenge. It was fun, but sort of fiddly. I was a bit of a cheapskate and tried to use some of my oldest papers 12 x 12 papers to cover the TP rolls. There are certainly VOS (very old supplies) so it felt good to get them used...but...had I known how fiddly this mini would be, I would have used nicer paper!

I have one little assembly tidbit to share in case you ever try to make one. Before I cut any paper, my very first step was to Sook Wang any edges inside the roll that looked loose or starting to peel.
That solved the problem of those edges fraying more with the motion of pushing the tags in and out of the finished book.

I think this mini will be a present for the grandkids. They have cameras and can take a few pictures of Christmas 2013 for their book. Little Mr P will love to pull the tags in and out!

The tags have fancy edges but I double matted the fancy part with a flat glittery card for extra strength. Perhaps you can see those edges a bit better in the next few photos.

Here are some shots of the mini pages.

Here are the tags that slide into the rolls. I left the back of each plain Glitter paper as this is where the kids will place their photos.

Hope you like the mini tour...off to work on a few more of the challenges. Hope I am not boring you too much...There is a faux stained glass stamped card coming up soon and also a 3D tag...that one should be fun!

No recipe tonight...basically 3 TP rolls, a bunch of snippets and more of that glitter paper I have been using on my last couple of posts. The embellishments are K and Co (of course...lol).

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

I am still working away at completing my remaining nine challenges for the Marks Finest Papers, Twelve Days Of Christmas Challenges.
If you would like to learn more about these challenges, click here.

Day 4's challenge is to create a Post It note cover. I have never made a post it note cover before and decided that while I seem to be on a craft room Christmas decorating roll, I would make it match my composition book from Day 1. It also matches my Christmas ornament from one of my previous posts in the last few days. I am very mitchy-matchy...my daughters tease me about it all the time.

I decided to use the Best Creations Olive green glitter card stock again. It is very sturdy and the glitter does not rub off at all! I was sure glad to find that tidbit out, as glitter makes me very itchy. With all these remaining challenges to finish, I have no time to be itchy...lol

I had to mount the vellum quote on some white cardstock first and then cut it down as the quote was too big for my post it note holder as is. I then matted the trimmed down quote with the same glitter paper in red, and then glued it down onto the cover. I used Sook Wang tape again as this cover will take a lot of daily use...I do not want it to start peeling off. The Sook Wang grabs the glitter paper nicely!

I added one last set of the teensy leaves from the MFP Holly Jolly stamp set. Have to have it match everything else...right???

The glitter paper which matched my other projects, did not crimp well. I was able to create my own pattern to fit two stacked post it note sets by cutting my cover to overlap my post it note set by 1/4 inch and doubling that to create the length. Two scored lines 1/2 inch apart created the spine and a strip of Sook Wang holds the spine onto the notes. I ran a line of Sook Wang to affix the cover to the bottom of the stack.

I had a small mason jar that had some raised dots all the way around it. They reminded me of snowflakes falling. I decided not to tint my epsom salts and leave them white...to help those snowflake raised dots look more convincing. I did add some drops of Body Shop Vanilla essential oil as I love the smell of vanilla!

I punched an Stampin' Up oval of Best Creations white glitter card and mounted it on a Stampin' Up scalled oval cut from their silver glitter card.

Luckily, Little Miss C won a Christmas set of Marks Finest stamps called Holly Jolly Greetings. I borrowed the holly leaves and colored them with copics. I fussy cut out the teensy set and added it to the front label. I tied a few lengths of very fine silver cord around the top and tied a loopy bow.
The MFP large holly leaves were punched with the Stampin Up scalloped circle punch, coloured with copics and mounted onto a circle of Best Creations Red Glitter cardstock. I tucked that under the lid just before I put the lid on. The lid was sort of an ugly shiny brassy tarnished looking thing...so I pulled out my Viva Inka Gold and rubbed on 2 layers of silver. It is amazing how that stuff covers so well!

I am totally creating the challenges for the Mark's Finest Papers Twelve Days of Christmas all out of order! I have submitted Day 1 and now I've jumped to Day 6. Thank goodness that it does not matter as all the challenges are now listed here and we have until 9 pm on Nov 11 to submit our 12 entries.

The leaves are a sea of vivid colours here, and falling non stop. The drifts of leaves in all the neighbourhoods around us look gorgeous. They crunch under your feet as you walk and the neighbourhood kids love to jump in them. The riot of colours made me want to make a some fall decorations.

The challenge for Day 6 of the Twelve Days of Christmas is to make a Mason Jar Candle. It does not have to be Christmas themed. I decided to make a fall inspired jar and decorated it with some hessian ribbon which has glittery embossed leaves stamped on it. I cut a piece of the wired ribbon, folded one cut edge under and wrapped it round my mason jar. I placed some Sook Wang tape under the folded edge and pressed it down as tightly as I could. I then wrapped some twine around and tied a loopy bow.
I fussy cut out a couple of the glittery leaves and combined them with some Prima Fall Leaves, nestling them just under the tied twine bow.

I don't have many MFP stamps but did find this "Live" stamp in their "Be Wild And Free" stamp set. I stamped it onto an upcycled coffee sleeve and trimmed it down to look like a slim fishtale flag. I combined that with a MME Wicked Merchant Malvado's single banner pennant and slid it under the bow.

Cut another piece of the hessian and frayed the edges all around. Mounted that on another piece of the coffee sleeve and added one more "Live" sentiment and pennant flag. Tied it round the top like a tag.

I filled my mason jar with rice, and dried beans. I wanted the fall colours of the beans so show through the bottom of the jar. I then placed my candle inside, nestling it down into the beans to level it.
Here is a close of of the front...showing the rice and beans through the design.

As you can see in the first picture, I have the original lid to my antique blue/green glass mason jar...I will use that lid to keep the dust out when my candle is not burning.

I made a little Christmas ornament for my craft room. I used the same Anna Griffin Christmas Kitsch self adhesive vellum quotes that I used on my Black Friday Planner that I posted yesterday.

I store my planner next to the computer in my craft room...right beside the woven box that I hang my key collection on. I have been adding the keys slowly, and it looks rather bare still. Thought I would hang the ornament there, amidst the keys. Should be fun to see the two matching pieces there as I do not usually decorate this room at all.

Some of the storage baskets in my room are the same shade of green as the word bells on my sentiment. That is why I chose green for the planner cover and the quotes with green for the focal points.

Here is my start on crafty Christmas decorating!

The base is a top note looking greenware ornament I picked up yesterday at Michaels in America. I covered it with Viva Inka Gold in the colour silver. I had to do a couple of coats to get full coverage and actually took a stiff artist paintbrush and pushed the silver paste into the ridges on the side edges.

Once fully dry, I then centered the vellum quote and trimmed off the excess with an exacto knife.
I looped a small piece of silver braided cord through the hole at the top and tied it in the back and cut off the loose ends fairly close tot he knot.

It still looked a little bare, so I took 2 lengths of very fine, silver twine and tied then round the bottom of the braid.. made a double loopy bow and tacked into place (to firm it up with a teensy glue dot.I added a pink rhinestone to cover the look of the glue dot edges.

Monday, 4 November 2013

Marks Finest Papers are sponsoring a unique challenge called the Twelve Days of Christmas.
Each day from Oct 22 until Mov 2, 2013, they featured a different challenge. You can find the challenges here.

There is a Christmas themed stamp set for each days individual prize, and a grand prize of $350. worth of current stamp sets for the grand prize winner who enters all 12 challenges. You have until 9Pm on Nov 11, 2013 to upload your creations. Submissions are limited to up to 5 per each days challenge.I am going to give it a try...hopefully I get it finished in the next seven days!

Day 1 is to decorate a composition book. I have mentioned before that my daughters and I like to go down to the USA and shop the Black Friday sales. We book a hotel for 2 nights and shop till we drop. I get a lot of fabulous crafty bargains at Joannes and Michaels on Black Friday. We usually just sleep 3 or 4 hours as the sales are all at weird times at different stores. We do the bulk

of our Christmas shopping on Black Friday.

I think the Joanns is at 4 am or something like that! Yes, you read that correctly...you shop all night!!!

The line ups to pay are huge (maybe 40 to 60 minutes)...but the shoppers are all on a shopping bargain high...everyone is friendly and giggling...and it is a lot of fun! The massive savings suits this frugal lady too!

In order to shop successfully at Black Friday, we research the sales flyers and online ads, plan our strategy, make wish lists and mark the store hours for the special times our items go on sale.

We then create a master list that we all share. It would be impossible to get everything on your list if you were shopping on your own. We take a copy of the master list each, and we each get assigned stores and assigned items in that store. It is key to get a shopping cart and believe me, that is an experience in itself on Black Friday!!! lol

This book is the start of my Black Friday planning. My wish lists and stores, times, etc will be recorded in here...It is from this book that the master list will be compiled. I use the back pages to assign a couple of pages per person in my family. I then use thes to list the presents I hope to buy for that person. This way the book can still be used after Black Friday, for tracking the rest of the Christmas shopping and used to check and see who is finished and who still needs a couple more things. I try to treat everyone equally, so this helps me keep track of that.

For those of you whose heads are spinning by now, remember that I have a brain injury that causes me to forget things in the moment. If I did not have this list, I would get distracted and forget where to meet and at what time. I would also forget some items I was there for.

For me, it is when I multitask, or when I feel stressed, that I forget more often. This book really helps me stay on track for my bargains.

The snowflakes at the top are self adhesived felt from the dollar store and I stuck a small rhinestone down into the hole in the center. So the bling is attached to the green glitter paper and protected from being knocked off by the depth of the felt snowflake hole.

The large snowflake on the bottom right is a raw chipboard one that I picked up in a package from Michaels in the after Xmas sales last year. I added another felt adhesive snowflake overtop and punched a hole through it all for a red diamond brad. I attached this big snowflake as soon as I finished cutting the glitter paper and rounding the right side edges. That way I was able to attach the snowflake to the glitter paper with the brad before I glued that whole front page down onto my book.Now remember that I need my book to be able to withstand being shoved in and out of my purse those 2 days. I basically covered the entire back of the Best Creations Olive Green Glitter paper with Sook Wang and stuck it down. I used a Anna Griffin Christmas Kitsch Vellum quote sentiment sticker and affixed it first to some ivory card and then trimmed the whole thing down to fit on my book. It was just a little too big as is. That was then affixed to a snippet of the same glitter paper in red.I really love this glitter paper as the glitter does not come off. It is glittery but affixed to the page really well...do not want a purse full of glitter now, do I...The little red band is a belly band to keep the book shut and protect the precious pages! Yes, I know...it is a funny word...but it works!This book is entered in the following challenges:1. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets (the small, red, glitter card mat.2. Marks Finest Papers Twelve Days Of Christmas- Day 13. Unstampabelles - Vellum
4. A gem of a challenge - Christmas
5. Allsorts Challenge - Christmas Cheer
6. A Little Bit Crafty - Sparkle and Shine
7. Simon says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything goes

Sunday, 3 November 2013

I really enjoyed planning my card for the Christmas CArd Club. Christine of Christines Cards and Crafts chose the theme to be a Religious Christmas.

I needed to make a religious Christmas card for my Mum as she has strong views that there must be a religious aspect to any cards given by, or sent to her. She is a strong believer and likes to see the true meaning of Christmas remembered and honoured.

So I set out to ink up a Nativity Silhouette that I bought for making all my Family cards. Found a lovely card on Pinterest to use as inspiration and organized the embellies and ribbon for it.

Then I stamped out the silhouette and found that my black ink pad was not juicy enough to give a dark outline! I had already been out to the scrapbook stores yesterday, too bad I had not realized in time!

I could not purchase a digital image as our printer does not work with our new Windows 8 laptop and google indicates problems if you download new drivers for it. Cheapskate that I am, I am trying to wait till Black Friday for a bargoon on a new printer. That also gives me time to research a great printer for printing digis, with a back loading paper tray (or the ability to back load a few papers) and the ability to print good photos! Oh yeah...and it has to work well with Windows 8!!!
I have had some great recommendations so far!

So, a good rummage around my room found some K and Co chipboard nativity scenes that I had bought for Little Miss C and Mr P to make for Great Grandma. So here is my card...with the main elements snitched from the Grand kids art drawer!

I know it is really plain but I was aiming for it to look like a scene!

I cut two gentle hills out of a snippet of

textured pearlescent card stock and roughed up the edges to look like dirt. I glued these to a piece of Recollections deeply embossed crinkle shimmer card. The photo is fairly true to the colour IRL and I was hoping it would look like the sky. I mounted that on a piece of Best Creations Prussia Blue Glitter card. Then it was just a case of adding the Star and the sentiment to the scalloped card base and envelope from my recent trip to England.

Saturday, 2 November 2013

While I was making up the card kits to take with me to the crop, I found this image I had previously coloured and filed away. I store my finished, coloured images in small, black vinyl photo albums from the dollar store. I have a couple for Christmas images, and several of the same for non Christmas themes. Once coloured up, I move them to a another set of albums...brightly coloured albums to signify those images are already coloured.

They are so handy as I can just grab one of the uncoloured image books and my pens, if I am invited to an impromptu craft outing.

I coloured a couple images of this little snowman quite some time ago. The others have long since been made into cards...thought it was time he had a home too! lol I really like him with his lights all akimbo!

I managed to use some red velvet/suede paper for the image mat. It was VOS (very old stuff), many, many years old.. I have always loved the feel and the look of it. I found that it embossed the edge of the die into the texture of the velvet, quite nicely. I have not seen this paper in any of my local shops lately, so I cut every last scrap of it. Teensy pieces were even made up into corner dies. You will see these, and a few of the leftover scraps of it on my future Christmas cards.

I used snippets of the same papers on my last card. These were originally 12x12 scrapbook pages I used for a December Daily. I have a lot of snippets of them and realized the patterns are small enough to use for cards.

The red poinsettias were from a 25 cent clearance bin at Michael's. I always check those type of bins when they clear out things as I have found some great bargains there in the past. I know they are quite flat looking but this is another of the cards that will be mailed overseas so I could not use my poinsettia die to make a pretty layered one...they have too much depth to fit the standard postage slot.
Here is a close of of the leafy clusters.

For the top right corner, I layered some green card stock snippets of Sizzix branch with leaves dies with some kraft card stock Martha Stewart leafy branch punches. I was careful when I glued them to place the branches so they fit in between the leaves, rather than glued on top of them. This helps reduce the depth under the rhinestone of the poinsettia. The bottom left corner is the basically the same but I used a bit bigger green leafy branch, the Stampin Up Little Leaf Sizzlet die.
I am hoping that the rhinestone makes it through the slot but if not, I will pry it off and use stickles instead.

Thank goodness there is one lady at my local post office that is kind enough to test my cards for me and hand them back if I need to make adjustments to the depth!!! Sweet lady!

After I got my sentiment placed, I thought the card looked unbalanced at the bottom right. I needed something fairly small and found this wee 3D tag sticker in my Xmas embellies iris case. I placed it just above the sentiment and it seems to have done the trick, as my eye is not drawn there anymore.